Planespotting Live on BBC Four
 

Tonight at 8pm, and then for a further two nights, Peter Snow and Andi Peters will be live on BBC Four, standing at the East Midlands Aeropark watching a variety of Jet2 and DHL planes coming in to land at EMA.

It's at East Midlands as, apparently, Heathrow said no. The two scheduled departures for that hour will make for thrilling television...

Should have put it on a bit later, would have been ideal for insomniacs..

Three nights at EMA .... Wow

It's going to be rubbish isn't it.

Already being discussed, unsurprisingly, in PPRuNe's Spectators Balcony.

Could be worse. It could be four nights

Or take a look at this "Red One to London" on Thames TV 1973 from Heathrow tower.

Ah, that makes sense.

Instead of planespotting at LHR, it's a case of "spot the plane" at EMA. :O

Very true that I worked at EMA about that time, and each night out on the ramp I would see DC-3, DC-6, Belfasts, Convair 580s, DC-8s B727s etc and did a few wheel changes on some.

I quite agree. Puerile and patronising delivery by Peters and Snow, and clearly under-rehearsed.

Turned off after five minutes. Just dire.

Hardly, with John Snow in full manic mode. He used to seem a pleasant kind of chap, now I'm wondering what he's on!

Poor tv in every sense. In fact, rubbish. And a waste of licence-payers' money.

Coming LIVE to BBC Four soon:

1. Snow and Peters paint a fence - watch it dry live!

2. Live coverage of the grass growing in Snow and Peters' back gardens....

:hmm:

Whoever commissioned this rubbish wants a good talking to. Total waste of the licence payers money. Was that Danny le Rue impersonating a pilot?

747 crews may have been intrigued to learn, that, the types engines consume "200.000 litres...in a flash ! "....as we were informed last night

Plus, one of the more unusual destination / distance examples.....London to Cape Horn...direct ( as the line on the map kindly illustrated. )

Danny (la Rue) died in 2009; the BBC died last night.

I didnt think it was tooooo bad, though agree completely that Messrs Snow and Peters were irritating within about 15 seconds of the start. I thought having an actual pilot on to give some actual facts, one who happened to be a very experienced woman having flown all sorts (of boeings), was a great decision.

The problem, as with so much that is done on 'documentaries' these days is the need to dumb it all down as much as humanly possible. But some of the pre-recorded segments were interesting.

Also, wonder how they got away with broadcasting data from flight radar without providing the source.

Why has nobody told John Snow he is dead? Well, at least that was the impression I had of him, a dead man walking and talking!
And I know I will get some stick over this but....
I can imagine the pre-production meetings that went along the lines of:
Personnel:
Doddering old fart who is a well known face on telly? Check
Ethnic minority component? Check
Disabled person? Check
One apparently androgynous subject expert? Check
Check for alternative location at Heathrow in case the wind is not favourable? Ooh Aah! Forgot that boss.
Well, OK, you forgot that but you did manage to find the worst place to see aeroplanes from at Heathrow.
(I will probably be going there later to photograph the Oriental arrivals but it certainly will not be at Myrtle Ave!)
Having said all that, I shall probably watch it again tonight. There may be aeroplanes to see..

It was best summed up by Andy Peters looking at a 737 and asking if it was a 727.

Oh you rotters. I recorded last night's as I was engrossed with Easties. Now, I think I'll just wipe the recording. But in terms of narration, there was someone worse than Snow; the ex Concorde fella with the squeaky John Major voice who replaced Raymond Backstairs.Now, he was really awful. Settling in to Leeds Bradford revisited ( Where I started as a Viscount co-jo) has been an equal disappointment. Absolute worthless. Bring back Jane Bolton of Easy !

No.

Captain Catherine (formerly Vance) Burton.

I'm normally a huge defender of BBC but ye gods that was really terrible. I turned off after 15 minutes, cringeworthy.

Lasted 2 minutes, tuned in to a man talking about 5000 sick bags, Greg Wallace and instant coffee was marginally better.

Wasn't it just. It might have been better if they'd had a couple of presenters who were a) not massively over-excitable and b) actually had a clue. Peters apparent inability to distinguish a 727 from a 737 was the biggest Facepalm moment (before I switched off) but Snow repeatedly asking if the 767 was a 'big' aircraft wasn't much better.

As a volunteer at the Aeropark it's great to see the site looking so good, even if only in the background shots.

As for the programme, the less said the better. When will presenters ever learn that the programme is not about them, and that their job should be to be as unobtrusive as possible whilst providing accurate information for the viewer. 727 or 737 - words fail me!

I believe Andi Peters used to present Blue Peter, did he think this was to be shown on CBBC?

One thing which struck me about last night's programme was the piece they did on the tower. Only one person on duty? All night? What about calls of nature or if they suddenly take ill? Do they phone downstairs and ask for a radar controller, or is there only one of them as well?
I once arrived at work early one morning at EMA to find the apron covered in aircraft that should have landed at Heathrow. One imagines that dealing with a host of diversions, in addition to the regular traffic, would be somewhat challenging for a lone ATCO.